Three in the Morning
by St-Jimmy1669
Summary: Withnail and I. With conditions in the flat worsening, huddling for warmth in an entirely Platonic fashion is simply not an option. Smut


I looked across the front room as the squeaking of the stopper in the wine bottle perforated the glum silence. Withnail paused and stared at me.

"Take a fucking picture." That said, he contemplated the plastic mug on the sideboard before shrugging and raising the bottle to his lips.

"Other people are going to drink out of that!" I raised my voice in protest.

"Oh, calm down." He grimaced and set the bottle down roughly, "I would have thought you'd be glad for some of my germs to outcompete your far inferior specimens." His upper lip curled in evident distaste, which I ignored.

"Well, we all know who to blame when I come down with dysentery." I put my book down, "Pass it over, then." At this, he grinned and cradled the bottle to his chest.

"Good Lord, whyever would I want to do that? We all know that you're going to be just as jumpy no matter how rat-arsed you get. At least I still have the chance to drown my not inconsiderable sorrows..." As if to illustrate the point, he took another mocking swig, raising an eyebrow. I sighed and returned to my book.

When the light conked out, I may as well have been able to see his accusatory glare, so I jumped in before he had the opportunity to project this sentiment.

"It was your turn to feed the meter."

"Well, do you have any coins? 'Cause I bloody well don't." The sofa groaned as he stood up. "Oh, Christ. What are we even doing here? We could be in the pub right now, _not _wearing overcoats to avoid catching bloody hypothermia."

"It's three in the morning." Unperturbed, I dropped the book on the floor, excavated mypockets for loose change, found none, and settled myself more deeply in the chair.

"Jesus!" Withnail was still ranting, "The things I put up with! Substandard alcohol, no lights, a biological clock that's shot to buggery - I tell you, I'm worth more than this! I mean, what sort of a Hell-hole doesn't allow the pubs to stay open indefinitely?" This rousing speech was punctuated by the occasionaly clatter of objects wilting in his wake as he marched from room to room.

"That's excellent - and stop pacing; you'll break something."

"-and now, for the love of God,I have this miserable creature ordering me about-" It didn't seem to have deterred him in his diatribe: quite the contrary, it provided his waning index of platitudes with fresh fuel. "-I mean - fuck it, I'm a bloody thespian, and I'm living in what can only be described as the worst possible squalor." There followed a short pause, and as my eyes began to adjust I could make out his sillhouette picking up the abandoned bottle and draining it as sustenance for his next self-effacing lap of the flat.

"...stuck here without even a whisper of a delectable paramour, which isn't really surprising, given the absolute filth..." He stopped, either because he had exhausted his vocabulary, or to draw breath: I didn't wait to find out which. I stood, zipping my coat right up to the chin.

"Well, as long as there's no light or heat, I'm going to bed." Suddenly, he was back facing me.

"You can't just leave me..." He was wheedling – that was a bad sign. It meant I'd end up giving into some arcane request in the next thirty seconds in order to preserve my sanity.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" I made a point of not resuming my seat, even moving towards the bedroom door. He sighed laconically, extending a derisive arm towards the dregs of bourbon in a decanter on the mantel.

"Stay up." It was my turn to sigh.

"No wonder your biological clock's buggered. What harm will going to bed do you?" He paused, apparently considering this, then there came the authoritative rubbing-together of hands.

"Then I'm coming in with you. You know full well my room's the coldest in the flat." I conducted an elaborate shrug, and retired, not needing to check to see that he was following immediately behind.

***

"Is this what we've been forced to resort to?" My voice was cracking with tiredness, but my eyes were painfully open. Withnail rolled over with a groan of bedsprings.

"What are you prevaricating about now?" He stifled a yawn.

"Well, it's alright for you – you've been snoring for the past hour and a half. But are we doomed to spend all eternity sharing a bed to ward off the cold, and hoping the..." I groped in vain for a suitably horrific word, "-the monstrosities in the kitchen don't spontaneously develop life?"

"Probably." The self-righteous rant of two hours ago was gone, replaced by that resigned martyr pose he was prone to. I shifted onto my side to face him, the details of his appearance swimming in the near-dark.

"It's absurd, that it should have to come to this. And it's not just us, you know. Half the population of London's up to its armpits in slurry, and all that happens is that they're spoon-fed the sordid details of the lives of the other half, splashed across the morning paper along with the bacon grease and chip fat-" I was readying myself for part two of the discourse, but promptly forgot about it when Withnail's long fingers grasped my shoulder roughly and pulled me into a kiss.

After the instant it took to register what was happening, I pulled away, spluttering.

"What the fuck?" He straightened the duvet immodestly.

"I came in here to sleep, not to listen to you prattling on."

"But..." All words evaded me, and I rolled onto my back. It was quiet for a minute, and when I tentatively turned my head, I found him studying me.

"What is your problem?" The words were meant to come out hotly, but only succeeded in sounding mildly plaintive, as usual. He took a moment to process what I'd said, and then snorted.

"Apparently, you weren't listening earlier." He reached across me to flick on the lamp – of course, nothing happened. "-fuck it. Anyway, blame my masculinity, not me. I've as good as forgotten what a woman's body is supposed to feel like."

I ignored the taunt.

"Then you won't mind waiting a little longer, will you?" There was no reply, so I lay still, hoping he'd lost interest.

I'm not sure who was more surprised when his hand boldly reached across and came into contact with the tented sheet. He withdrew, and I sat up abruptly, pulling the duvet up with me.

"Fuck off..." It didn't come out nearly as strongly as I had hoped. Withnail, having recovered himself more quickly, was just grinning.

"Peter, you terrible dark horse..." He never spoke like that. And he [i]never[/i] called me by my first name. I glared at him. "What? It's a perfectly normal biological reaction, and you have nothing to be ashamed of." He rolled his eyes, and raised himself up on his elbows, so that his head was cocked at a less awkward angle. I couldn't keep quiet any longer.

"When I told you I wished a buggery upon you, this was [i]not[/i] what I had in mind" The most effective end to this conversation would come from my leaving, since Withnail evidently had no intention of doing so, but I felt somewhat indisposed.

"A buggery?" his eyes widened in slapstick astonishment. "Wherever did you get that idea?"

"From your unwarranted... caressing." At this, he actually laughed.

"Any poor bastard who calls [i]that[/i] caressing has a lot to learn. And, much as I'm loathe to spend an iota of a smidgen of a millisecond wasting my brain on Danny, he was probably right about the hair being the conduits of extraterrestrial information."

I didn't respond, chiefly through utter incomprehension. He sighed.

"Am I really taking on an imbecile here? Bald people are uptight. You have so much hair; it flows in such bountiful abundance over your skull, you're... whatever the opposite of uptight is. Free. Unrestrained. Unrepressed. Or you would be, if you weren't so bloody uptight." He didn't appear perturbed by the fact that his last couple of sentences had made absolutely no sense.

"Yes, that's wonderful. But, returning to normality for just a moment, I have no intention of unrepressing myself, even for you."

"Your mouth, it lies... I demand the truth."

"Yes, Withnail, unlike you, I am capable of separating cognitive and biological imperatives."

"You are no more capable of separating cognitive and biological imperatives than the fuckers lining the more disreputable bars round here." He raised his eyebrows. "Though, even if you were, it would make no difference. You are biologically disposed to want to commit unmentionable acts with me right now, and your cognitive reflexes aren't strong enough to hold you back."

"They seem to be doing a good enough job right now." I swung my legs round, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You're the only insatiable maniac in this room."

There was no reply. I remained sitting, staring at the crack in the wall, whipping back round only when I heard the groan of the bedsprings. Withnail had shifted himself into an upright position, and was gazing expectantly at me.

"What? Seriously, what?"

"Wuss." He muttered

"What did you just say?"

"I said 'you really are a most insufferable wuss.'" He stared me down.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing..." He was jibing me now, a twitch at the corner of his lip betraying his enjoyment of the situation.

"Withnail, you had better not be deriving any sort of pleasure from this...." He merely let his smirk widen a little further, by way of reply.

I had spent the preceding five minutes almost retreating into myself in terror at the prospect of his leaning across the bed and planting one on me, so I know that I was definitely the most shocked by my sudden impulse to do just that. He read it in my face, and I was just conscious of his face cracking into a full grin as I twisted fully round and pulled his lips to mine.

I fought the subsequent, almost overwhelming urge to pull back away when his tongue pressed against my lips, and he grunted softly as I opened my mouth, dispelling any illusion that I was previously entertaining about fleeing the scene. I found I was the one groaning when he pulled away, and I glared at him.

"I won. That is all." With which, he pulled my head forward again, toppling me onto my side. I briefly considered the idea of pulling off the overcoat he was still wearing, but it wasn't that kind of mutual encounter. I let him disrobe himself, frantically cursing the buttons on my own shirt.

"Shit, it's cold-" he gasped, apparel consigned to the floor. I ignored my own goosebumps, amusing myself with the shiver running my frozen hand over his back elicited. Despite himself, it seemed, he arched into me. I reached down between our bodies, but he slapped my hand away

"In which universe do you get the privilege of going first?" He gripped tightly, and I baulked, which only served to increase his determination, as, breaking our lips apart, he rolled over onto his back, forcing me to follow. It was all I could do to restrain my whimpers – of pleasure? Pain? Fear? They all seemed to roll into one another. The words 'Withnail is holding my cock' flashed in front of my eyes over and over, on ticker tape, and I shook my head, trying to dispel them.

"Jesus Christ, I'm about to fuck a lunatic." Without looking up, he caught the shaking of my head, and, sighing dramatically, forced my hand back between us. I had to choke a snort of laughter as the ticker tape amended itself 'Withnail is holding my cock, and I am holding Withnail's...'. He chose to ignore this, and I flinched as his fingers worked their way around me and into the first appreciable hole they found. It hurt; it hurt beyond what any reasonable man would endure, and I almost yelled accordingly, until he silenced me again with his lips. I tried to reciprocate, my free hand wandering over his side, but he broke away again, pushing me off and sitting up.

"If anybody's going to be fucking around here, it's going to be me." I remained prostrate, groaning as I realised he was no longer touching me.

"I..." I had a hard-on that was rivalling many of my solo efforts. I could barely resist reaching down to finish myself off.

"Yes, but if you think I'm letting you put that inside me, you have a problem. Now..." He spat on his hands, and rubbed them together briskly, "lubrication." I stared at him in horror.

"No way. There is no way..." He shook his head as he rubbed himself down with the saliva, and regarded the conclusion. I maintained my weak protestations, now unable to resist the throbbing, and drawing my legs up to sustain the sensation. "It'll be pain, pain beyond any scale formerly conceived. Something else..." He appeared to be ignoring me, contemplatively running a finger up and down his length. I had to look away.

"Aha! Vaseline!" He almost leaped off the bed, not even bothering with his coat before dashing out of the room.

"I don't think we have any..." I called after him.

"Nonsense. There must and will be Vaseline." Things clattered to the floor in the kitchen as he opened drawers and cupboards, and then there came a triumphant howl.

"Found the bastard." He brandished the tub, smearing himself with the viscous goo on his way back to the room. "Now, I see no way how you can possibly avoid a buggering." Bouncing back onto the bed, shivering, his mouth collided with mine again, and then he was rolling me onto my front, twisting my legs apart, gripping my shoulders with sharp fingernails as he forced his way in. I winced, biting my lip, and clutched the pillow as hard as I could as he plunged back and forth. Even with the additional support, it was agony, but Withnail's grunts suggested he was experiencing it similarly.

"Relax, you idiot," He growled. I obeyed. It made it palpably easier, and the confusion of the rubbing inside me, the fingernails in my shoulder, the hand between my legs drove me inside my head, shuddering and bucking against him to thrust him deeper. When I couldn't bear it any longer, I helped him, the shuddering only marginally increasing as I came. He carried on; I let him force the side of my face into the pillow, his arms buckling now with the effort of staying upright. There came a few deep pushes that made me gasp out loud, and then he was biting into my shoulder, stifling the guttural noise that threatened to burst from his throat, clasping my body weakly.

We lay like that for some moments. He was the first to move, rolling off onto his back. I looked round at him.

"I wasn't the only one who was curious." He rolled his eyes, typical Withnail putdown.

"We are thespians. It's practically illegal not to experiment."

"We haven't had work in God knows how long. Are we really thespians?"

"Well, I don't know about you..." He sat up, looked at his coat puddle on the floor, and flopped back down again, "But whatever the reason, that's why we're stuck in this steaming pile of shit the wankers in the council are gratuitous enough to call a bijou suburban dwelling, with no food, no telephone, no booze, and no bloody heating."

I pulled the blankets up over us.

"Sleep it off." For once, he didn't offer a retort. I shifted onto my side, facing him. "Are we going to be able to huddle together for warmth in an entirely platonic way again?"

He chuckled to himself.

"What reason on God's Earth could you possibly have for wanting to do that?"


End file.
